The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful
country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the
horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its
people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them
is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five
individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead
of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of
limited expectations.

Somewhere in all the word salad about running government like a business, cutting taxes and finding efficiencies, we've lost sight of a crucial idea: Michigan is not a third-world country.

Maybe we should do something before our state starts to look like one.